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The Subject Marker in Bantu As an Antifocus Marker*

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The Subject Marker in Bantu As an Antifocus Marker* Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 38, 2008, 221-254 doi: 10.5774/38-0-31 The subject marker in Bantu as an antifocus marker* Jochen Zeller University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 4041, South Africa [email protected] 1. Introduction In most Bantu languages, subject-verb agreement is expressed by prefixing a subject marker (SM) to the verb stem; the SM agrees with the noun class features of the preverbal subject. This is illustrated by the Zulu (Z.) example in (1):1 (1) Ikati li-ya-gul-a (Z.) cat5 SM5-DIS -be.sick-FV "The cat is sick" In this paper I suggest that a preverbal subject DP and the corresponding SM start out as one constituent in the derivation. I argue that the class 5 subject noun phrase ikati ("cat") and the class 5 SM li -, which is prefixed to the verb in (1), are initially part of the same phrase whose internal structure is depicted in (2): 222 Jochen Zeller (2) n*P n* DP li- D N i- kati In (2), the subject DP is the complement of the SM, which I analyse as a functional head with nominal properties. Following a proposal by Chomsky (2006), I label this head n*. I assume that in a sentence such as (1), the n*-head has moved out of the subject n*P and has incorporated into the functional head which hosts the verb. Therefore, the SM is attached to the verb stem and the verb shows overt agreement with the subject DP. The primary objective of this study is to show that the proposal illustrated in (2) offers a way to explain the lack of subject-verb agreement in subject-verb inversion constructions such as that in (3b). (3) a. Abafana ba-ya-cul-a. (Z.) boy2 SM2-DIS -sing-FV "The boys are singing." (Buell 2006: 19) b. Ku-cul-a abafana. EXPL 17-sing-FV boy2 "The boys are singing." (Buell 2006: 23) In (3a), the subject abafana ("boys") is in [Spec, T] and agrees with the finite verb (the SM ba - is attached to the verb). In contrast, in the inversion construction in (3b), the subject is realised νP-internally and hence follows the verb. Importantly, the SM ba - does not appear in (3b). Instead, the verb is prefixed with an expletive marker of locative class 17. I demonstrate that the correlation between S-V word order and subject agreement observed in Zulu and many other Bantu languages can be explained on the basis of the structural representation in (2). I argue that an n*-head which is realised by the SM marks the subject n*P as [– Focus]. The subject marker in Bantu as an antifocus marker 223 Furthermore, I show that subject n*Ps which are marked as [– Focus] must move out of the νP for syntactic reasons. It follows that a subject n*P such as (2), whose head is the SM and which therefore shows agreement with the verb, has to move to [Spec, T]. In contrast, if no SM is present, the subject remains in the νP and appears postverbally. The paper is organised as follows. In section 2, I discuss the relation between subject-verb inversion and subject agreement in more detail. Section 3 motivates and develops the idea that the SM and the subject DP form one constituent. In section 4, I provide evidence for my claim that the SM marks the subject as [– Focus], and I develop a syntactic analysis of focus agreement which ultimately explains why a subject with this feature specification must move to [Spec, T]. Section 5 concludes the paper with a few comments about antifocus marking in non-Bantu languages. 2. Subject agreement and word order in Bantu As was shown in the introduction, Zulu, like many other Bantu languages, allows for subject- verb inversion. (4) is another example from Zulu; (5) provides an example from Kinyarwanda (K.). (4) a. Ingane i-hlek-il-e. (Z.) child9 S M9-laugh-DIS -PST "The child laughed." b. Ku-hlek-e ingane. EXPL 17-laugh-PST child9 "The child laughed." (5) a. Umwáana a-ra-lir-a. (K.) child1 SM1-PRES -cry-ASP "The child is crying." (Kimenyi 1980: 51) 224 Jochen Zeller b. Ha-ra-som-a umwáana. ΕXPL 16-read-ASP child1 "It's the child who is reading." (Kimenyi 1980: 206) (4) and (5) show that subject agreement in Bantu is typically associated with S-V word order. When the subject precedes the verb, a SM of the same noun class is attached to the verb. In contrast, the "inverted" V-S word order is characterised by the absence of agreement. Instead of merging with a SM, the verb is prefixed with a non-agreeing default marker from a locative noun class (class 17 ku - in Zulu; class 16 ha - in Kinyarwanda). I follow Demuth (1990), Van der Spuy (1993), Zerbian (2005) and others in analysing this locative marker as an expletive. As the examples show, the expletive and the SM are in complementary distribution. I therefore assume that the expletive is required for purely morphological reasons; it fills the subject prefix-slot and must be attached to the verb stem at PF if no SM is present (cf. Baker 2003). The standard syntactic analysis of Bantu subject-verb inversion assumes that in the "inverted" structure, the postverbal subject is in its base position inside the νP, while the verb has moved to a higher functional head position (for example, T), as in (6a) below (cf. Demuth 1990; Demuth and Mmusi 1997; Baker 2003; Letsholo 2004; Carstens 2005; Zerbian 2006a; Hyman and Polinsky 2007). The S-V order is then derived by moving the subject out of the νP into the canonical preverbal subject position which is higher than the landing site of the verb, as in (6b). In this paper, I follow the standard approach and assume that this position is [Spec, T].2 (6) a. V-S-order TP b. S-V-(O)-order TP T vP DP T' verb SUBJ DP v' T vP SUBJ verb verb SUBJ v' verb The subject marker in Bantu as an antifocus marker 225 Notice that no category occupies [Spec, T] in (6a) (recall that I analyse the locative markers in examples such as (4b) and (5b) as morphological expletives). If one adopts the current Minimalist view and assumes that the projection of [Spec, T] is due to the EPP, then (6a) implies that in the non-agreeing V-S construction, the T-head does not have an EPP-feature.3 Since movement is only permitted when required (the Last Resort -principle, cf. Chomsky 1995), subject movement cannot take place in (6a); consequently, non-agreeing subjects must remain in [Spec, ν]. In contrast, [Spec, T] is projected in (6b); whenever the SM occurs, the subject must move. The obvious question that arises is why subject agreement is associated with subject movement / the EPP in Bantu. Why does the subject end up in [Spec, T] when there is an agreeing SM, and why is the SM absent when the subject has remained in situ ? Interestingly, in the Government-Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981; 1986) and early versions of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995), it was assumed that agreement is only licensed if a functional head and the DP with which it agrees stand in a Spec-Head relation. Since the Bantu data show that agreement between T and the subject requires the subject to be in [Spec, T], they could be interpreted as support for this assumption. However, the theory of Spec- Head agreement has been abandoned in later versions of the Minimalist Program. It is now widely assumed that for agreement between T and a DP to be established, it is sufficient that the DP is in the c-command domain of T (cf. Chomsky 2000 and subsequent work). There are important conceptual reasons for this view, which concern the idea that the computational system builds syntactic structures in a bottom-up fashion. When a functional head F is merged with its complement α, F's uninterpretable features must immediately start searching for a phrase with matching interpretable agreement features. The available search space at this stage of the derivation is α, F's c-command domain. According to Chomsky (2005, 2006), "minimal search conditions" rule out agreement between F's features and a constituent outside F's c-command domain. Since [Spec, F] is not c-commanded by F, Spec-Head agreement cannot exist. But more importantly, the idea that c-command is a sufficient structural condition for agreement is first and foremost motivated by empirical evidence. For instance, in many languages, verbs can agree with postverbal subjects. The examples in (7) and (8) illustrate that subject movement to [Spec, T] is not a necessary condition for subject agreement in English and Italian. 226 Jochen Zeller (7) a. Some students were/*was in the room. b. There were/*was some students in the room. (8) a. Io ho/*ha/*abbiamo camminato. I have-1S G/*3S G/*3P L walked "I walked." b. Ho/*ha/*abbiamo camminato io. have-1S G/*3S G/*3P L walked I "I walked." (Italian; Samek-Lodovici 2002 example (4)) Data such as those in (7) and (8) strongly support the view that T can agree with a postverbal subject DP, as long as it c-commands it. But if this is the case, then the lack of agreement in constructions such as (4b) and (5b) remains a puzzle. To my knowledge, the question why subject agreement in many Bantu languages requires the subject to move out of the νP has not yet received a satisfactory answer.
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